Novell has denied claims by SCO Group that its planned acquisition of SuSE Linux violates an eight-year-old noncompete agreement.
The enterprise software company issued a statement on Tuesday dismissing a claim by SCO chief executive Darl McBride that the acquisition contravenes an agreement signed in 1995. That's when Lindon, Utah-based SCO acquired Unix System 5 from Novell.
"Mr. McBride's characterisation of the agreements between Novell and SCO is inaccurate," Novell said in the statement. "There is no noncompete provision in those contracts, and the pending acquisition of SuSE Linux does not violate any agreement between Novell and SCO."
The Provo, Utah-based software maker went on to say that it had not received "formal communication from SCO on this particular issue" and that it would respond if the Linux antagonist formally pursued the matter.
McBride's comments were made during a conference call on Monday in which he discussed SCO's continued retention of Boies Schiller & Flexner, a law firm whose partner David Boies represented the US government in its antitrust case against Microsoft.
"We bought the Unix System 5 rights from Novell back in '95, and there was noncompete language that would prevent Novell from competing against our core offerings," McBride was quoted as saying in a transcript provided by SCO. "Linux is a knockoff of Unix. There can't be a more straightforward reading of the noncompete clause."
By "reading", SCO clarified on Wednesday, McBride meant "violation".
In the conference call, McBride hedged on whether SCO intended to sue Novell over the alleged contract infringement.
"When the Novell-SuSE deal is complete, we will take measures to enforce the noncompete agreement with Novell," McBride said, according to the transcript. "I don't know that it will turn into a lawsuit. That depends upon how they respond, and if they put a competitive product in the marketplace."
Talkback
What continues to irk me is McBride's constant use of "we" in the context of SCO in the 1990s. While it is true that Caldera bought assets from SCO in 2000, and subsequently changed their name, Caldera was not there in 1995 when the Novell transaction took place, and McBride has only been at the newly-renamed company since last year.
What was bought by SCO, and then what was sold to Caldera is up to the courts to decide, but there was a lot of history that Darl wasn't part of, and which he now is eager to insert himself into. I am not sure, but he was most likely still working at Novell in '95 when Novell sold some of the UNIX property to SCO. So, maybe the "we" McBride should be talking about in that context is Novell.
Remember that there are 1,000 miles between Santa Cruz and Lindon, and it often seems that McBride is about that far from the facts. I certainly don't think this is accidental. On the contrary, I think it is part of the overall plan of subterfuge they have created.
I find it really confusing the way the article uses "SCO" to refer to two completely different companies. Would it be possible to distinguish them in future articles?
The company that bought Unix copyrights from Novell was Santa Cruz Operation (TTLA). The company that Darl McBride heads is The SCO Group (SCOX). While it's customary to refer to both of them as "SCO", this gets really confusing when both are mentioned in the one article...
(Santa Cruz Operation is now known as Tarantella, hence the ticker TTLA. The SCO Group, SCOX, was previously known as Caldera. For this reason, TTLA is sometimes known as "old SCO" and SCOX as "new SCO".)